When Nicole Niles speaks about Caribbean Dreams Magazine, the passion resonates in every word as she tells the story of its past, present and future.
Her husband David also shares that passion, especially when he shares his ideas. Together they intend to capitalise on the company’s potential and continue to make waves in the tourism and travel market.
The couple sat with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY for an evening interview at their Guinea Plantation, St John home, which also serves as the award-winning company’s base.
Nicole, the managing director, recently won the Small Business Association’s Entrepreneur Of The Year Award and Caribbean Dreams won the Tourism Related Service Award for the second consecutive year.
“I didn’t expect it. I was super fussy. We’ve been blessed in that a lot of the things that we have been putting in place for a long time have finally come to fruition,” she said.
But how did Caribbean Dreams come about? Nicole said that not only did they realise there was a need for the online travel and lifestyle magazine, but being able to influence people, showing them what they could do and “really influencing tourism in a bigger way” was also an impetus.
“When I first started working, I was in the tourism industry and I guess I had that type of personality – friendly – and I used to be interacting with the visitors all the time directing and telling them where they were going. A lot of the times I would be directing them to the tourist magazines that there were and saying ‘this is what there is to do on island, are you interested in doing this?’” she said.
“A lot of peple would have indicated at that time ‘I’ve seen that already. I have that same one . . . I keep it from year to year becasue they don’t change it’. . . . We have a very high repeat visitor rate, in fact . . . the rate is well over 50 per cent at times.
“I also grew up on the campaign ‘tourism is our business, let’s play our part’. For whatever reason, I took it way, way too seriously and I guess that was a big part of the how I came to be so social with the tourists as well because I was playing my part in terms of interacting with them,” she said.
It also helped having parents as entrepreneurs as she wanted to have her own product, her own business and be successful.
Getting started was a “culmination of things”, Nicole said, explaining that initially she wanted to have the magazine printed but that proved “to be a little bit more difficult than an ambitious young lady thought that it was going to be. In the end she decided “if you can’t ride horse, ride cow”.
She also heard a lot of “nos” and “buts” but she persevered, taking every negative and constructive comment and using them to her advantage and publishing the first edition in August 2013.
“I knew I wanted it to have a certain look, a different feel, a certain twang to it as well and be something that would certainly appeal to people visually so that if you were consuming it as a visitor or if you were going through it as a customer, it would be something you would want to be a part of,” Nicole added.
Why the name Caribbean Dreams?
“It’s Caribbean Dreams because it is literally our Caribbean dream to carry the product to the Caribbean islands because . . . it is rooted in the fact that Dave used to do the inter-island sales [of maps] and we thought to ourselves it might be easier to start a magazine somewhere other than here because it was dominated by other publications,” Nicole explained.
David, the sales manager, added: “It is also extremely hard to sell to the Bajan public . . . . When we first came out with the magazine, people were hesitant to sign on to an online publication. People like something that is tangible and if they can’t see it they don’t usually want to be a part of it. Now there’s a big difference, especially with the Docked edition. everybody is really eager to come on board . . . ”
Docked is produced in conjunction with the Bridgetown Cruise Terminal and was launched in September after the SBA awards.
“We actually would have rebranded the Barbados Holiday Map, which has been around for the last 25 years and is now branded Caribbean Dreams, which is fantastic and we have the opportunity to carry it to other islands,” Nicole said.
David plays a pivotal role in the company, saying unabashedly he is “the best salesman in the world”.
Nicole said she will continue to work really hard in her current job while working on growing the product along with David and the members of their team, making it more visible and recognisable. (Green Bananas Media)